Wanda Baloyi - Brand Woman

There is something that every woman fights for. And growing up in a continent that is deemed “third world”, I can surely tell you that it is not to be seen and recognized, it is not fighting the concept “a woman belongs in the kitchen” and it is definitely not better salaries or better careers. It is something beyond that…what every woman is fighting for is an agency-to be given a voice, and for the voice to be heard. 

My name is Wanda Baloyi and I am honoured to be sharing a piece of my story today. 

Woman empowerment is a topic that lies vested very close to my heart. It is not only a globally contested topic, but it is something personal to me. It is real. I have experienced it. I have felt it, And I can speak boldly and fearlessly about it… Ladies and gentlemen, I’m an artist, a musician, a vocalist to be precise;as some might know or not, lol. I’m a citizen of the world, I am Human! But beyond all of that, I am a woman. Raised by a very strong woman whom I am delighted to call my mother. A woman who sacrificed so much for me to be standing here today. I am a product of her labour, my model c education was funded by a street vendor and unashamedly, that is just part of the sacrifices made and that has proudly groomed me to where I am today. I write this representing a large number of women who are confronted with so many limitations on the basis of their gender. It is heartbreaking to me to know there is a woman who has to sacrifice being a global citizen on the basis that she is a woman. It is heartbreaking to know there are still women who cannot get certain types of work because society ridicules their gender. I have come to realize over the many years in my industry (music industry) that in order to break the boundaries, I had to earn my scars. Not only am I a woman, but,I am a black woman, I am a multi-cultured woman, and by that,life has presented me with a few punches and I own them. I am a Brand New Woman with no limitations. I have many layers of me that I have learnt to embrace. I am fearless in my doings.

As I stand here today I stand as woman who is empowered.

I stand and say I am empowered because I speak with no need to apologize. I am empowered because I believe I matter to society. And yes I am empowered because my journey as an African woman has been a remarkable one. Inside the woman that I am, lies an entrepreneur, an academic, a thought leader and an artist of note that can provoke opinion and engage diverse audiences through telling a story of my journey. 

One theme that I always explore as far as woman empowerment is concerned is empowering the “Brand Woman” the philosophy of “Womanhood”. I truly believe that the modern African woman has a lot to offer society. The modern African woman is provocative and has an opinion. All we ought to do is to seek strategic partnerships with the stakeholders of society and move the woman empowerment conversation.  I look up to artists such as Simphiwe Dana and Thandiswa Mazwai who have critiqued the norm through their art. The likes of Ntsiki Mazwai who spoken boldly and open on the issues women are faced with such as rape. Women like Carol Bouwer and Khanyi DhlomoMkhize have done the ground work for most us. They have shown us it is possible and it can be done.  

My appeal to the woman and actually the men as well is that we should be of the new age era and doctrine. We should engage and empower society enough to be able to take a stand and have an informed voice. Let society strive to unearth and sustain the global citizenship and empowerment of women. 

Multiplier: New Age Man Mamagement

“A successful employee starts from the day that you appoint them, I often say; people have not failed in an interview but we would have set them up for failure had we appointed them” Jan Thema

Jan and his business partner Peter Khan still sit in on interviews even though they own the company and the reason for this is very simple, they want to make sure that they hire the right people who buy into their vision of making Multiplier the organisation they have always dreamed of.

Having being employees themselves and being in top senior positions at a very big organisation, they know exactly what it is that makes a successful employee and the challenges that come with managing a variety of personalities hence they are moving away from the strict concept of micro management and giving their employees more freedom in the office by allowing them to manage their workload the best way they see fit as long as the job gets done. This strategy is proving to work very well for them as in the space of two years they have managed to multiply their start up capital by 10 which is a very impressive feat for any organisation.

“We are trying to create a family at the office, make employees feel they are part of the organisation” These are the words of CEO, Peter Khan who goes on to explain that the biggest value add in an organisation is the people you hire which is why they have to be treated as well as possible to ensure that they continue to buy into the vision you have for your organisation and the quality of their work resembles the company’s values.

Most employers put out all the stops to get employees to stay at their company, however Peter and Jan are different in their approach as employees are incentivised to leave and this incentive goes over and beyond their salary and their pension funds due to them, unheard of right? Well the two gentlemen contacted one of their employees, Mitesh,  to confirm this to us and to highlight the point made earlier that employees feel at home in the organisation, the conversation was as follows:

Peter Khan – “Mitesh, how much do we pay employees to leave”

Mitesh – “The last figure we agreed on is R 5 000.00”

I place emphasis on we because from the tone and confidence that Mitesh said his statement with, you could tell that he genuinely felt part of that decision and understands that this figure is subject to further negotiations.

Peter and Jan have been employees themselves so they know what it is like to want to leave an organisation for greener pastures and incentives like this make them feel comfortable that all employees are there because they want to be there and their employees feel that they have the support of top management to follow and pursue their dreams even if they are beyond what Multiplier can offer.

With an incentive like this, one would expect resignations coming quick and fast but that is not the case at Multiplier, the organisation has only had two resignations in their two years of existence which is very impressive for any organisation in a world where people jump from company to company seeking a wide range of things from more money to growth to job satisfaction.

John Maxwell describes a leader as “One who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way” Many entrepreneurs around the world can learn a lot from Peter Khan and Jan Thema because they do not only understand the importance of employee loyalty but also understand that as leaders of the organisation, they have to first prove their loyalty to their employees before expecting the same from them. 

Keep it real with,

Rori Matsetela 

Fortune Favours The Brave - The "Multiplier" Story

                             

A time came for the founders of Multiplier to leave their senior positions after a tenure of almost 20 years combined service with, good salaries, shares, Bonuses and a prospering career, to start up Multiplier.

“We went for dinner, myself and Jan at O’Galito’s in Centurion Mall, and that’s where it all started…

I had worked for OUTsurance for 11 years as a Head of different departments, but I have always had a vision to start my own business and do my own thing, we read a lot in the media about unemployment in the country and the only way in my opinion we can solve that problem is if we use the ability we were blessed with in creating jobs for people. Then I instigated it and started putting some “nonsense” into Jan’s head asking him “what about if we left OUTsurance?” 

These are the words of Peter Khan (Managing Director and co-founder of Multiplier). I had the privilege of meeting withhim at his beautiful double storey house in Centurion together with his co-founder and Director Jan Thema. As we had a long dialogue about the reasons for him leaving a lucrative package of about + - R3 million per annum (salary, bonuses and shares) with the largest short term insurer in South Africa to pursue a project that could potentially have ended their careers.

“It wasn’t even a difficult decision.” Jan describes about the bold step he took to just ship and become the sailor of his own boat with Peter. 

“When you are in an organisation and you can see that the people I work with particularly Pete who I had worked so closely with over the years at OUTsurance where I was the General Manager and he was my Head; we had worked well together and we excelled in all the departments that we ran. The reason I say it was an easy decision is that: when you can run key departments within an organisation like we did with minimal involvement from other parties, then you know you are on to something. We were almost running our own business within a business, it’s just that we never owned it. That gave light to the fact that we are capable of doing it. Pete has always been an innovative thinker and the key to any business success is innovation and I think we also gelled very well in making a success of everything we did together, so it didn’t take a lot of convincing for us to “Multiply” the minimal capital we had.

It was something that was bound to happen, it was a case of when, it was a case of how, it was also a case of facing what every aspiring entrepreneur faces which is to say, “Am I ready to leave the comfort zone because we were getting paid good money”. It was a matter of measuring your dreams against the comfort zone and saying, “can you leave your comfort zone and move on.”

Peter and Jan started Multiplier on their own with very little capital, in fact the only capital that they had was their last salary, pension and shares that they had accumulated from their previous employment which they had to sell to gain capital. Shares were not the only thing they sold, Peter had to sell his BMW 335 and settle for a much smaller and cheaper vehicle. They had to change their lifestyle, where they shopped, where they ate, what they ate and at times they struggled to provide for their families the way they did. They had an idea and major sacrifices had to be made to reach the levels of success that they were destined for, but they didn’t realise that in reality it was extremely hard. Determined as they were Peter and Jan had made a pact that they will never work for someone ever again, they will never be employees again and that’s what kept them going.

They started Multiplier with the vision that they are going to build something out of nothing, everything they’ve done around Multiplier has been from scratch. The company itself is 100% equally owned by just the two of them, with no help from the government or any external investor.

“When we started we had no office.” Peter recalls of the early stages of Multiplier. “ We decided to meet up at Parrots in Centurion Mall with our laptops and that became our office where we would spend over 8 hours a day thinking about what we were going to do and how we were going to do it. At that stage we had absolutely no clue what we were going to do but we knew we wanted to be in the financial sector and play the call centre game. Then we decided to just give it a shot, we sent out proposals to ten different companies and nine of them came back and said they were willing to do business with us. This was in a space of three days and we didn’t even have an office nor did we have employees. So now we have people wanting to work with us but we don’t have space to actually run the business, so we drove around Centurion and found a little “warehouse”. We took this little warehouse which had sand and mud and we cleaned it up, Jan and I together with others actually went in and got down and dirty with spades, brooms, mops and hose pipes to turn this warehouse into an office.” 

 

Multiplier is only two years old but employs just over 60 people working in a call centre doing all kinds of different jobs. The company does work for some of the leaders in the financial industry. It operates as a call centre brokerage and also offers call centre support for many other organisations. At the moment they do short-term and life insurance and they have just recently got their commercial license approved with the FSB. They specialise in generating excellent quality leads/marketing for business, effective and quality telesales and handling and support of overflow calls in peak periods. Multiplier pride themselves on innovation, they choose to do everything in a unique and inventive way, they were the first call centre based brokerage company and are looking at breaking more boundaries within the financial industry.

Mutliplier are a client centric company that is obsessed with offering fabulous service, if you are insured with them, then you are guaranteed a courtesy call at least once a month,where they ensure that your profile is in order and they will always renegotiate your insurance deal. Gone are the days where you need to call an insurance company to cancel and your premium suddenly gets miraculously dropped. They are the first and only company that does this in their industry. 

They have a strong passion for their employees, (he shared and explained that a “deal”
was offered by his previous employer, he would have been given a cash incentive worth millions after 12 months, if Peter did not “take” OUTsurance staff, he turned the deal down without hesitation and with a smile). They treat staff like gold and make them feel and believe that they are all in it together. The employees themselves have a great sense of belonging and entitlement towards the company. “We have a rule in our company where we say, we will pay you R5000 .00 to resign, this is over and above your salary, so basically we will compensate you for leaving.” Peter explains this fresh concept with a proud smile.

“What makes Multiplier different from any other organisation is the approach we have with our people, there are no rules within our company. The guys have free access to internet, they take lunch freely and we don’t request sick notes when you take a day off to go to the doctor, we have no drinking rules or drug tests. What we are trying to create is a culture of accountability within our staff. Every Friday we close the office at three o’clock and we go and relax with the employees and get to them know each one of them better, enjoying some lovely cold beers.”

Peter and Jan started Multiplier from scratch but they insist that if it wasn’t for the support that they received from some of the extraordinary employees at OUTsurance they wouldn’t have gained the expertise they have to run the company. Their story is one of taking the initiative and being bold, they could’ve just stayed in the organisation and continue to climb the corporate ladder, but they had a burning desire to create their own ladder and be a master of their own destiny. “The timing was perfect” they both insist “had we started anytime sooner or later it probably wouldn’t have worked out.”

It is true that fortune does favour the brave, with no real motivation to leave high paying jobs, no financial backing or cushion to fall back on these two young entrepreneurs took a bold step and relied only on a vision that was so deeply embedded in them to run their own business and started what will possibly be the future of insurance as we know it. This is the start of a success story of how Peter and Jan invested a mere R3.6 million 18 months ago and have turned this into a business valued at over R20 million currently.

Multiplier

Multiplier is a 100% black owned business which was founded by motivated leaders in their industry with commendable background in the call centre and sales industry.  Peter Khan and Jan Thema  both worked for a company that is one of the leaders in the Insurance industry called OUTsurance.

Peter Khan has vast experience as a former Head of Sales, Client Retention, Client Care Services and Insurance Life departments.

Jan Thema has vast experience as a former General Manager of Sales, Client Retention, Emergency services and Client Care services departments.

 The two combined have 18 years experience in the Sales and Call Centre environment.Their passion for your business comes from the success in their fields  of expertise. 

Multiplier is excited and passionate about the services they offer to businesses and believe that their services can add a positive impact to your business. A business opportunity is definitely worth multiplying.

If you considering an opportunity for them to assist in your business, contact Peter or Jan on 0826030120 or 0836024722 and lets talk about multiplier.!

Think Like A Winner

In every seed there is the promise of a forest. You can be as great as you want to be, your future is in your hands

George Bernard Shaw’s words “Life is not a brief candle to me, it is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations, motivate winning ideals.

If you want to get results that winners get, you must think like a winner thinks.

Thinking like a winner means believing you have the courage, determination, dedication and a competitive drive. It means sacrificing the little things in life and a willingness to pay the price for the things that are worthwhile to you.

Set your sights high, the higher the better. Expect the most wonderful things to happen, not in the future, but right now.  Realise that nothing is too good. Allow absolutely nothing to hamper you or hold you back in any way.

Dr Walter Doyle Staples author of Think like a winner writes, “There are ten core beliefs that are unique to all peak performing men and women."

Consider each one carefully, and imagine what your world would begin to look like if you held the same beliefs and made them a part of your life today

1. Winners are not born, they are made

2. The dominant force in your existence is the thinking you engage in

3. You are empowered to create your own reality

4. There is some benefit to be had from every adversity

5. Each one of your beliefs is a choice

6. You are never defeated until you accept defeat as a reality, and decide to stop trying

7. You already posses the ability to excel in at least one key area of your life

8. The only real limitations on what you can accomplish in your life are those you impose on yourself

9. There can be no great success without great commitment

10. You need the support and cooperation of other people to achieve any worthwhile goal

Now that you know how to think like a winner, you can begin to be a winner. You can break through the success barrier simply by selecting your target and pursuing it with all your talents and abilities, and all the energy at your command.

It is through your thoughts that you can enrich your life and control your destiny. You can rise to any height, and find peace, happiness, and unlimited power within you.

You can become all that you want and deserve to be. Ultimately, it all depends on your manner of thinking. There is immense power in believing, for believing is the dynamic force that forges our potential into winning actions.

You are unique. Your particular footprint has never walked on the face of the earth before and never will again. Nor will another voice sing out encouragement and praise to people with the particular sound and characteristics of the voice you possess.

Dream what you dare to dream! Do what you dare to do! Be what you dare to be, for the sky is the limit

Author, 

XILAVI ALINAH MOKOENA.

 

 

The Imaginary Friend Within

We often ask questions about ourselves that we already know the answers to, but we ask because we want someone else to confirm what we should already know better than anyone else.

The people we often turn to are our friends that we have good honest relationships with and trust them to give us the best advice possible, a lot of the times we find out that they tell us more or less what we were thinking in a different way but because we do not have the same trust and faith in ourselves we never thought it was possible and if self doubt persist then their advice will just end up falling on deaf ears. We need to learn to build more solid relationships with ourselves because it does not matter what advice we get from who, if we do not believe in and trust ourselves then we will not be able to turn that advice into action.

It is very important that we learn to trust and believe in our abilities before we give others that responsibility because if we do not believe then it does not matter who believes as our individual success is mostly in our hands and any help we get needs to be accompanied by faith in ourselves if we are to use it effectively.

A good technique that can help us to build more meaningful friendships with ourselves is the imaginary friend concept, think back to when you were a child, when you had no friends around, you would make them up and have so much fun with them that you forgot they are not real for a moment, and the fun you had with your imaginary friend would translate to the fun you would have with your actual friends when you eventually saw them.

Imagine that your imaginary friend is your partner in success and you have full faith in that friend to always guide you in the right direction and the same way the imaginary friend you had as a kid played a positive role in your life, imagine this one to do the exact same thing just on a more mature level.

Take your imaginary friends advice with confidence and belief that it will make you the person you dream of becoming; this will have a greater impact than when someone else gives you the same advice because the imaginary friend is a source that you created and lives within and because you unlimited thought and imagination to create that person, go wild with the idea and create the most successful person to ever live and draw inspiration from that person at all times.

Keep It Real With 

Rori Matsetela

Focus On Your Gifts

You owe it to life to do what you love. Whatever you enjoy doing, that is a gift you’ve been given. It is your own unique contribution to the world. It will take you anywhere you want to go if you will take the time and effort to develop it.

When you develop your own unique talents, you gain confidence, and a larger vision of yourself. That will have a positive influence on every part of your life.

Decide to master something that you love. Put forth a sustained, consistent effort. Do something every day to develop your skills and knowledge in that area.

It’s almost impossible to be successful at something that you dislike. Success requires inspiration and dedication, commitment and hard work. Can you be totally committed to something you hate to do? Probably not.

Whatever you enjoy doing, there’s a reason for it. Your enjoyment is life’s way of motivating you to excel in an area where you have a skill and a desire to make a difference. Put that motivation to work for you.